Surah Yusuf #79 – V111d – Guidance! But How
Date:
Channel: Nouman Ali Khan
Series: Nouman Ali Khan - Surah Yusuf
File Size: 68.01MB
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AI Generated Summary ©
The speakers stress the importance of guidance and understanding the concept of Sweet Potato, as it is essential for achieving goals and moving forward. They stress the need for practical guidance, acceptance of the Quran as rich, endlessly rich, and infinitely superior, and personal effort and acceptance of the Quran as an " endless source of wealth." The speakers emphasize the importance of hard work and acceptance of the Quran for achieving one's own happiness and success.AI Generated Transcript ©
Although below him initiate on Raji
la politica, nahi kar saucy him a Bharat only
Makana ha de
tous the lady buy in a day he walked off see luckily she
went off See, luckily she
met an economy
from a shanty, suddenly we're silly Emily Wang Dr. Missoni, Hokulea hamdu Lillah wa Salatu was Salam ala rasulillah. While early he was a big man, I'm about once again everyone somewhat like that obrigado. I am still discussing with you lessons learned from number 111. The final idea of sort of the use of, and we've reached the part where Allah says, well, who then? So there's a few phrases. We've already talked about the certainly in their narrative, there's a profound lesson, we had an entire discussion on the podcast, because I see him. We had a discussion I brought on little Bob. And then we had mark and ahaadeeth. And you've thought are we discuss? Well, I can just click on the
DVD. So it's not made up speech, it's a confirmation of what came ahead of it. What I've seen, luckily Shea and I also discussed quite a bit with you about an explanation of all things, and what that means and a separation of all things by by extension, meaning a clarification of all things. Now the final two phrases and actually today's discussion will be dedicated to only one of those phrases well, who done and the guidance. Those of you that are students of the Arabic language you notice here
that all of the definitions of the Quran given Armin sube their sub status. So does the car has a Fatah on it have sila has a Fatah on it? Who then is magne? So the you know whether it's my foreman silver majority, you can tell? But you can, you know assume from the wild that it's monsoon here, it's not some status and 10 is also necessary. So the question is, why are the elements who Why are they all with the Fatah? Because they are you can assume them to be the hubbub or the predicate of the verb Ghana, which is implied here. So it is not, it is absolutely not so and so. But in fact it is and that it is the kinda is implied. And that's why all of the other halaqaat are that way. So
those of you that are familiar with sentence structure will be able to tell what I'm talking about. And those of you that don't,
I say these things to you to encourage you because in Sharla, as complicated an alien, as all of this stuff might sound, it's just a few months, and you can do it, it's really not that hard. And you'll be surprised how quickly you can learn all of it, you just have to have the right intention. So today we are coming across
a discussion about the Quran a phrase about the Quran that you probably heard more than anything else, when when anybody talks about the Quran, whether it's a football, or you talk about it, or you hear about it, the talker and his guidance, that's, you know, those two words are almost synonymous and associated with each other constantly. One of the most common descriptions of the Quran to a Muslim, is that it's guidance.
Where I want to start is that words we use the most often are the words we tend to think about the least. Because they become everyday words. They become generic, they become something that we throw around all the time. And so we don't stop to think about those words deeply and carefully. And what what lies behind them. Right, so well. And that's certainly the case with the word hood, that it's a very profound statement to call the Quran guidance. And what I'm going to start with is actually just a couple of things that I should have pointed out ahead of time. When you talk about something like alleged talking about his speech, right? He's talking about his speech. When you describe
speech, you use adjectives. You don't you don't use ideas, you use adjectives. So just to make this simpler if I'm describing, for example, somebody's speech. I don't say that person's speech was
logic. I would say that person's speech was logical. Right? I wouldn't say that person's speech was organization. No, that's the infinitive that doesn't make sense. That person's speech was organized. Right? The same way that person's speech was beautiful. Not that person speech was beauty. Right? Typically, you expect an adjective when you're describing something, right? But here, all four descriptions of the Quran after Okay, it's not made up speech and you've thought is actually a kind of description, speech that is made up it's a Karma Karma for like the youth to rise in the place of MAF data. It's not if the law, but when it came to affirming what the Quran is, then the description
should have been. It is a confirmer. That's a description.
firmer. It's an explainer nikolaidis an explainer of or a clarifier of all things, those are kind of like adjectives, right? And it's a guide, guide, like a book can be a guide. Right? A map can be a guide, but you don't look at a map and say this is guidance. guidance is the idea itself. Similarly, you can say this message is, you know, this person is merciful. This person is merciful, this person is loving, but you don't say this person is love.
You say this person is carrying these words are caring words, right? But you don't say these words are care itself. So what I'm getting at over and over again is when you describe something, then the expected language is to see a description, in sort of you would say, it would be an SM file, it would be an assembler throughly, it would be an Assam sofa, it would be an assemble by law, it will be so one of these are smart, that are used in Arabic, one of these nouns that are used in Arabic to describe something or someone. In this case, we're describing the speech of Allah. But in every one of the descriptions, Allah decided not to use a describing word. He, he used a phenomenon word, the
idea word, the infinitive noun. What does that do? So I've talked about this on occasion in different lectures, as this has come up, and I'm sure we may have come up with use of also. But the Arabs had this weird, cool, super cool concept that actually in urban language has researched. So in urban language, like, you know, money, for example, money, you can think of it as the notion of wealth, right?
And you're describing someone who has a lot of money and say, Man, that guy's money.
That guy is money, he's not money. He has money. Practically, he's the possessor of money, but you describe him as what? Money himself or if you want to really exaggerate somebody's knowledge, man, that guy is just knowledge walking around.
He's not knowledge. He's knowledgeable. Right, but you described him as what the idea of knowledge itself? What are you trying to say? Crazy people say things like, man, if you look up knowledge in the dictionary, you find this picture.
Right? The idea is the law, the in the infinite concept of knowledge is embodied by this person. Right, and that's a kind of hyperbole, exaggeration. Really, it's an exaggerated thing to say, Okay. And, of course, you know, people in the past use these kinds of exaggerations like to call a king, mercy itself, or King may be merciful. But you took the entire idea of mercy, the infinite notion of mercy, and you juxtaposed it onto one king, and called him What a mercy that's overly exaggerated speech. Yes. But the Quran does not have any exaggeration it has hyperbole has strong speech, but it never exaggerate because the word exaggeration means you went past the bounds of the truth. But the
Quran is yokoso Huck. Myth speaks the truth, accurate, truth specific truth. So what Allah says, first and foremost is, there's never been a confirmation of previous scripture that highlights the truth of it, the idea of confirming previous scripture, you've never even experienced that idea until you've experienced the Koran when Alice has this little lady by an ad, when Alice has to see Luckily, it's not just saying hello, it's not just saying that it explains or separates wrong from Right. Right, or it separates ideas and it makes things clear, what is to be kept together, kept together, what is to be kept apart, kept apart, and we talked about that in detail. But as if Allah
is saying, when it comes to the spiritual guidance of a human being, and for a human being to find a purpose in their life, nothing has been able to separate misguidance from guidance, confusion from clarity, the idea the notion of clarity, the idea of clarity you have you don't even know what clarity is until you see this. This is not just a clarifier. This is clarity itself. This is clarification itself. And the same way the word houden, which we're going to talk about today, Allah didn't say that this book is a guide hajian haidian. But actually, who then the notion of guidance itself as if, if you ever thought that somebody guided you through a difficult time, if you ever
thought somebody guided you to a better career, if somebody if you ever thought some map guided you to a destination you've experienced guides before, but in the most comprehensive sense, to put protection, blessing purpose in every minute of your life, to guide every waking moment and every sleeping moment of your life. You haven't experienced the umbrella of guidance casting itself over you, and guidance itself shining on every part of your being. You actually haven't experienced the overarching notion of guidance until this Quran itself it is guidance itself. That's what this is. So it's a very powerful claim about the
all encompassing nature of Allah's guidance. I've talked about this on occasion in different ways. You know, we think about seeking medical advice from a medical professional because they will give us medical, well well established and research based guidance, right? Somebody who is, you know, an expert in legal matters, a lawyer can give you guidance on a legal issue. Right. So there's a legal matter, you seek legal guidance, there's a medical issue, you seek medical guidance, there's a career issue, you seek what career guidance. And then we have different worlds. There's the world of psychology in counseling, and you know, therapy and you seek therapeutic guidance from somebody
who's an expert in that field. So we have these different realms of guidance, economic guidance, political guidance, social guidance, medical guidance, you know, scientific guidance, whatever kind of guidance there may be. And then we say, and then there's this one, though, so all these different boxes, you can think of them as all these different sections in the library of different kinds of guidance. Oh, and then there's a religious guidance section. And in that section, there will be many books, and one of them is the Quran, right? It's also religious guidance, among the other available options, but it doesn't belong in the science section. It doesn't belong in the history section. It
doesn't belong in any other endeavor of human activity section, it's guidance over here. But actually, the Quran isn't just spiritual guidance. The Quran is the one the author of the Quran knows more science than any science section of the library, and knows more psychology than any psycho, then all of the world of psychology, it's its entire knowledge of psychology combined, is still, you know, a drop in the endless ocean of knowledge of human psychology. And no sociologists has been able to capture what Allah knows of human sociology because nobody can study society, we can study remnants, and, you know, archaeological artifacts of societies 1000s of years ago, and
Allah knew, every cell in their bodies, every word that came out of their mouth, every every second of their existence, not their millennia of existence. So no sociologists will know what Allah knows, no political scientists will know what Allah knows, no theorists will know what else no matter no medical doctor will know what Allah knows. And what does Allah do, a lot offers the kind of guidance that illuminates. It doesn't. It doesn't eliminate, I didn't say eliminate, I said illuminate. it illuminates all other areas of guidance. So it illuminates our thoughts about politics, it illuminates our thoughts about society, it illuminates our thoughts about self care, or even mental
health. It's not like the Quran has nothing to say about these things. And it's not like the Quran is trying to replace those sections of the library. But the Quran is giving a spiritual guidance that actually helps us get proper direction in any field field of human endeavor.
It provides insight that makes sure that those areas of inquiry because everything human beings, research and study is a double edged sword. You can study physics, and invent incredible things like cars, and you can study physics, and you can incredible create incredible things like nuclear bombs, right? So science itself is blind, it doesn't have a direction. science itself can guide you to how to manipulate materials, right? And come come up with new invention, or create new solutions or produce new kinds of weapons or whatever else, how to use that science in a way that actually benefits humanity requires an overarching guidance. Without that guidance, science can go in any
different direction, psychology can go in any different direction, therapy can go in any different direction, because it's lacking a light that it needs to be looked under. And that light is the light of the word of Allah. That's guidance. So when Allah says it's overarching, he called it guidance itself, he didn't limit this matter to just a spiritual dimension. But as if every area of human activity, every inquiry in human life, actually has a spiritual dimension. And the Quran will guide it in some way. It will push it in some way. And that's how it becomes an explanation of all things. So it doesn't have to enter into those sciences to guide those sciences. So the Quran
doesn't have to talk about, you know, child psychology at length, but it can touch upon the principles of guidance that can that can enable a Muslim therapist, and somebody who studied the science of psychology and see how Allah shedding light on what they studied.
It can it can enable them in ways that they couldn't have been enabled without it. Right. So that's, that's the idea of houden. Now, I'm very impacted by a few. You know, I've read a few things in my life. And one of the you know, one of the things that I read that deeply impacted me was the work of Amina Slahi, Rama, hula. And in one particular really one of his writings. It was an order it was called my my body to the Buddha Quran, roughly translated prerequisites to contemplating the Quran. And he wrote of course, his commentary on the Quran in nine volumes. It's available in Urdu to W Quran and
pondering over the Quran is the English translation of that commentary. I believe two, maybe even three volumes may already have been translated. I know one was translated many years ago, I think she actually told me to maybe up until now, maybe even three volumes and maybe available of that commentary. But anyway, so he wrote this piece, it's a small book, it's like 150 pages, it's not a big book
on if a person says they want guidance from the Quran,
then they should meet certain prerequisites. Right, and he would divide them, I'm not using his exact divisions, but I'm just simplifying it for you guys. It will divide them but you can think of it as there's intellectual prerequisites, like the study of Arabic, the study of history, the study of, you know, Hadith, relevant Hadith, the study of these kinds of things, right, the study of language, etc, etc, context. But then there are, you can call them psychological, or internal prerequisites. They're not prerequisites that you study. These are prerequisites that you have to think about, there are prerequisites inside your heart and your mind. Right, and he said, People get
people jump to the academic prerequisites of studying the Quran. But they skipped the most important prerequisites, which are the spiritual and psychological and mental prerequisites for getting guidance from the Quran. And he kind of put this map out on how you can think about that. And I thought that map was so powerful and so effective, and so relevant and so timeless that I should take this opportunity to remind myself because it we are talking about Koran serving as a guidance now, right? It's not made up speech, yet it is guidance is guidance itself. So I wanted to take some of what he highlighted that I think is I think every Muslim should know. And the ribosome should
review every now and then. So This to me is an opportunity to review this very important lesson. So the first thing he says sounds generic, he says, The first condition to benefiting from the Quran the way Allah wants you to, is to approach the Quran exclusively for the purpose of seeking guidance.
You're the chapters heading could be your intention must be pure ela Yeah, I know that I like Islam. 101 pure intentions got it. And the class finia. Again, when we say pure intention, we say these words so often, that they start to lose meaning because they become generic buzzwords. So let's think deeper about what he means when he says your intentions have to be clear. Well, he says, for example, if you've been he's talking to people that are reading his commentary, right? So obviously, people that are reading his commentary are into Koran studies. They're either imams of a Masjid or they're students of the Quran, or they're students of Islamic Studies in a university, or they're
part of a group or HELOC or something and they study his work, right? So these are in the Islamic or the religious circle people that people have spent time with the Quran. So he's talking to them, obviously, he's not talking to somebody who's no idea what the Quran is, and there there have never even begun to read the translation of the Quran, or he knows his his authorship is not going to reach them. It's going to read people reach people that are inside that religious circle, if you will, right. In the Quran, study circle. He says to the speaking to them now he says something amazing. He says, Well, sometimes your goal, you're studying the Quran to attain guidance. Listen to
this carefully. You're studying the Quran to attain guidance. But over time, your goal becomes studying for the sake of studying.
You just become so obsessed with studying and aha moments. And being able to say I finished reading this book or this tafsir or I finished this series or I took these notes or I finished this grammar work or whatever. The goal itself becomes what study but study was never a goal. It was a means to a higher goal. What was that higher goal? Yeah, like give me guidance on how to live my day. Yeah, like if my heart guidance and what choice to make between Asana and Maghreb.
Because when I stand in front of you, and I recite your words, I need guidance. So all of this study was actually a means to one and end. Sometimes the teacher he speaks about himself and others he says sometimes your goal with the study of learning Quran and spending time with the Quran, your goal becomes teaching. I'm going to learn this so I can what teach it. You shouldn't be teaching, you shouldn't be studying to teach. You shouldn't be learning Koran to teach Quran you should be teaching Quran so you can learn Quran better, and you should be learning it. So, you know, for myself, I actually reversed this formula A long time ago. I don't care to teach the Koran. But I
know that in my learning of the Quran, I get lazy. So I forced myself to teach the Quran because it puts me in a position to what learn, I better start studying because I put myself in that position. I want to benefit from Allah's words. I want it for myself. That's my goal. And if teaching helps me towards that goal, it helps me organize my thoughts. It helps me share something that maybe some if the fact that you might be able to benefit is a very secondary goal for me. My primary goal
Goal is myself, my primary goal is I want to be able to understand it. And I want to be able to know that I understand it well enough. Whatever I've learned to be able to articulate it. That's my primary goal. And so study to even teaching for the purpose of learning, but even learning for the purpose of what the ultimate goal seeking guidance, what happens to kids that are memorizing the Quran,
or even older folks that are memorizing the Quran, the goals slowly start slipping away in our mind. If somebody asked you What's the Quran is guidance from Allah subhanaw taala Yeah, but in your 24 hour day, your engagement with the Quran? Why were you memorizing it, because you want it easier access, immediate access to the word of Allah whenever you need what guidance, the purpose of memorizing the Quran was not so you can lead that are we
the purpose of memorizing the Quran was not to have the label I'm a half of now, the purpose of it was your heart needs immediate access to any part of the word of Allah. And you felt that this is something you desire inside of your heart. So you committed yourself to one memorizing it, isn't it so sad and tragic and ironic that Muslims dedicated Muslims teaching their children and themselves to memorize the Quran around the world have no concern for teaching them what the Quran means, and how to see guidance from the Quran. Because the assumption is when they're memorizing and they're reciting every letter gives them 10 good deeds good enough for us, that's a ticket to heaven.
That's how you see guidance. This is what these words came for. We'll dive deeper into that. But when he says your intention to benefit from the Quran needs to be pure. And what does he call the pure intention come to it seeking what guidance and what does he base that argument on? Why can I come to it be seeking knowledge? Why can I come to it seeking blessings? Why can I come to seeking protection, we'll talk about all of that. He says he has set the tone for all of it. If you want to be my slave, then you will ask me for guidance in the now guide us and the response to guidance is the rest of the Quran, the response of our pleading the fact he has the rest of the Quran. So if I
begged Allah for guidance, and he gave me this guidance, and now I come to this guidance for any other intention other than what seeking guidance, I missed the point.
I missed the point. He would even compare it to someone the tragedy of someone who didn't come to the Quran for guidance. He said it's like someone who came to a flower and only took away the thorns.
That's the analogy he gave like you know you came to the flower you're missing the point you're getting other things they're not what you came for. This is what you actually you're missing out. So keep your intention pure then he says your your intention sometimes becomes to prove something that's a one kind of intention is you you started with the right intentions but the the means became the goal right the studying or the memorizing or even the reciting for some people 20 years of perfecting their read Bismillah Bismillah this Milla now you have to make it light so Bismillah Okay, now, just know you know, I will not give you a jazz on your Fatiha for the next eight years,
you got to fix your Bismillah your hours and hours spend on pronouncing Bismillah AR and learn to read man absolutely learn it. But learning to the purpose of learning to read or so you take your time reciting. And the purpose of taking your time to recite is that it gives you time to contemplate and the purpose of contemplating is to see guidance. But what happens? The Maharaja the calcula, the hoonah the Iran that becomes the goal
that just think about where our mind is. And you know what, this is a kind of thing for myself as a student of the seat of the Quran. This is something I have to remind myself almost every day, like I can forget it easily. I'm just confessing about myself. I'm sitting at the seat of Enya we're debating the grammar of it. Oh mama Lucy says something really important about this? I haven't actually said this. He says this is Luca who says What about this? What about this narration and there's so much information, right? When you're looking at all this information, and there's a lot of a lot and it's all beneficial. But you have to take a step back and say Wait, no, but I came to
this ayah to seek what guidance I'm going to take all this knowledge and then put it against one question. What guidance Am I getting from this knowledge that Allah wants me to have for me?
But so you that hard question at the end so I'll I'll have an hour long conversation with him about a phrase not even an AI a phrase and at the end of it so what what is Allah want from us here?
I want that at the end because what is that question? Guys? Let's come back to God and we did it in. But if we get lost in an we'll lose sight of the real goal and the real goal is guidance. So it's the most prized goal, but it's the most easily forgotten goal. It's easy to say have your intentions pure
It's easy to say that but it's very easy to lose sight. It's so easy to lose sight, man. You've got like Islamic Studies students, people, you know, dedicated men and women studying Deen in the universities, etc, etc. And they're reading important books, write books about books about books about history books about CLR books about Hadith, books about some shady issue or whatever. And they're reading the author's writing, right? And the author says that he writes a paragraph and in the middle of his paragraph, he quotes an ayah. Right as his evidence. And I can, you can, if you're sincere and genuine Islamic Studies students, you know this already, you're reading the author's
words, where he quotes the year like yay, okay is used as a delete, and you go on, the only part you skip, and you don't pay attention to is when the i o was cited.
Like that's the only part that was like less important because I need to get to what the, what the author is saying about what Allah the author of all authors, his word got skipped, because it's just an evidence being used to furnish it, but it's just supporting evidence. That's just a quote in the middle, let's just keep moving. Oh, I already know that. I already know that. In other words, we overlook it because that's not that's not what I came here for. This is for.
That's not the part that's easy. That's easy. I got this. So there's, there's this notion. Now let's talk about another way that we come to the Quran with the wrong intention.
If you have something in mind that you want to prove
anything, something you want to prove, then you can come to the Quran, seeking validation for what you have inside your heart.
Okay, so you have an idea inside your heart that you want to prove XYZ. I don't even have to give you examples because they're ugly. But let's take a few let's let's take I'll speak in generic terms, you guys are smart enough to be luminol hrtf, hameau, Calvin, Kelly, Shara coffee, a wise person can take a hint, right? There political, you know, social trends in which we are supposed to, you know, alter our world, our world and moral view our ethical view and our spiritual view on certain things. Because it's no longer politically correct to believe what we believe, right, we're going to be seen as backwards, as barbaric, as intolerant, as extreme if we hold on to our beliefs,
because now we in the name of tolerance, things that we consider wrong, have to be considered part of the evolution of humanity, human beings have moved forward. And now we have a higher sense of morality, and a higher sense of morality is now contradicting directly with what the Quran is saying, right?
And so what do we have to do now? Well, some people, they've already accepted that I need to make these people happy. And obviously, the world has moved forward, we have better technology now than we ever had. That must mean we're morally superior now than we ever were also, we're so advanced in everything, we must be advanced in the definitions of right and wrong. Also, we have come forward so far, we can go backwards now. And these religious ideas, these scholars, these writings, these interpretations, this tradition, all of this is backward stuff, these people weren't enlightened the way we've been enlightened. They didn't have iPhones, they didn't have the enlightenment of YouTube.
Therefore, they don't know how to think on the higher plane that we think on. They didn't possess that kind of higher superior, moral, spiritual, ethical sense. And therefore, what they wrote and what they thought about the evidences they gave in the Quran. That's our not even going to think about that. I know what I believe to be right. And if I still want to believe in the Quran, I'm going to look at I'm going to find some place in the Quran, some code I can pull out, that can justify that the Quran is actually in line with this new way of thinking, right? I can just pluck some things out and do that. What did you do? Your you didn't put this this is actually when your
intention is not to seek guidance. It's not to and by the way, when you think of this imagery, when you're seeking guidance, you're asking to be steered in different directions. If I sought guidance to the airport, I would be told take a right here, take a left here, go straight there. I'm being steered. Yes. So when I say accept Quran as guidance, I'm accepting that Allah will steer my moral and practical view on things and my actions or my behavior, my thoughts, he's going to steer them in whatever direction he pleases, right? But when you have already a worldview that you'd like to impose, then you're intending to steer the Quran. Not having the Quran steer you. You understand,
and that is not accepting the Quran is guidance that is using I'm going to guide the Quran. This is like what Allah says. Allah to Allah when Allah Javi Dini, come tell them are you going to teach a lie your deen
you want to teach me is that is that what it is? That's literally what Allah asks in SoCal Holla Holla to Allah Muna Labine calm, so
You know, it's sad that you can you can be at the doors of the Kaaba and still worship idols, the irony, right.
And so you we can be at the, we can be facing the page of Allah's book, The words of Allah and still end up worshipping our own theories and not end up worshipping Allah. So the first consideration is that of accepting accepting the Quran as guidance and seeking its guidance, I'm not going to steer it, it is going to steer me, this also means that maybe you belong to a certain school of thought, let's go a little bit deeper. Because we talked about new new ideas that are emerging, and people want to see or the Quran in the direction of those ideas, right? That's what they want to do.
Another thing to think about the Muslims We are the reality of it is we belong to different schools of thought or different sects, right? So there are Shia Muslims are Sunni Muslims within the Sunni Muslims, there are dozens and dozens of variations, different positions in different lines in you know, different takes on the Sabbath, or antitussive of different you know, denominations in different ways of looking at Akita different, you know, one group considering the other emotional, all kinds of stuff we have all kinds of. And then on top of that, there are some schools that consider themselves the teachers of authentic Islam. If you came out of this Islamic University, or
that one or that one, then you are truly the champion of the pure flag of Islam. And others say, No, we carry the right tradition, our madrasa, our school our system. And so different parts of the world people graduate from different Islamic learning institutions, many of them get along, many of them are at odds against each other, our gang versus your gang kind of thing. Right? Where did you graduate from? Okay, kind of thing. You know, there's that kind of turf war within the religious Lee educated sometimes. Now imagine you're a young man or woman who's graduated and steady Chetty. And you have a shake, and you learn so much from them. And you, you you, you got to a certain place
where you can now do your own research and study right, and you're even teaching for that matter. What happens a lot of times is you don't even realize it, you're spending so much of your energy defending your school and defending your shave and defending your group and defending the your fellow graduates from your fellow school. So you're and when and when you have a debate with someone you quote the I art and a Hadith, especially the art of the Quran, to refute the evidences of somebody else. In other words, now the Koran purpose is not to guide you. The Quran is purpose is to disprove your opposing group, and to make sure everybody understands that your group is the right
group. So the the Quran is purpose is to furnish the evidence is to establish how right you are and how great your group is. And God forbid, maybe in the middle of an argument, somebody presents to you an idea you never thought about before, right? Imagine that you've been you've been debating and putting people in their place about how misguided they are, and how your school is the right school. Your view is the right your shape is the shape. You've you've been doing that for several years. Now. You got it down, you got a list of all the deviants and you know how to refute all of them. And in the middle of a conversation with somebody, somebody presented to you and I have a last word that
completely deconstructs one of the positions you have or holds a view against something your teacher taught you right now inside yourself inside at that moment that the Euro Islamic guy, you got a big old beard, you got a goofy on you look Islamic and you're discussing with somebody who's also talking about Islam. So you're both worshipers of Allah and you both talked about the sincerity of intention. But in the middle of that debate, when you came across an evidence that came directly from Allah, and deep inside your heart, you knew man that makes sense.
was in that moment? Was there no hesitation that you surrender before the word of Allah? Or was there Wait, no, he got me I gotta find something to fight back. Because if I let him take this, he won the debate. This was about the debate not about the truth, not about the word of Allah being Supreme, was it?
Is that not an idle inside of the heart? Is that the word of Allah His entire space, defending my position is higher the word of allies under that if the word of Allah goes against what I hold to be right, instead of saying, You know what, I can't say anything, I have to look more into that if you might be right. Because a human being a slave of Allah says I might be wrong.
My commitment is not to my group. My commitment is not to my cult, to the school, I graduated from my beloved teacher, even my most beloved teachers can be wrong about something, or maybe I'm wrong. But when that humility is gone, and that the guidance only comes from Allah when that is gone, and you say, I already got it. I already have the Huck. I already have the absolute truth. Everybody else needs to get rid of their bottle and get in line. Otherwise I know how to put them in line when you have that many
Integrity, then you won't even realize when you are undermining the word of Allah right in front of your eyes. How can you be? How can a law open the heart of somebody who's got who's imposing themselves. And on top of that, they're not even imposing some new, you know, postmodern, some new crazy, you know, ideas, some new isms. They're actually doing this in the name of Islam. That's even crazier.
You know, and there's all these crazy modernists, they're all converted, you know, corrupting Islam. Really, that's one kind of corruption. Another kind of corruption is when you're not being honest about the evidences with yourself, you know, being honest about the word of Allah with yourself. Because it goes against the group, they might kick you out, they might make, you know, refutations against you now. So you better keep your opinion to yourself.
That's, that's what we believe. That's what it's come down to, then then how is that pure intention? Allah says, on this, by the way, this was first point, accepting purifying intention. In order to get guidance, I got five things to say, I'll get through them. I got through them. But a lesson would I
think about this a different way today. Those people have purchased Miss guidance in exchange for giving away what guidance Yeah, that's what Allah says, In this ayah Allah contrast and guidance and Miss guidance, right?
One way of looking at desire is, if you don't put the pursuit of guidance from Allah, at the top, any other pursuit, any other pursuit, when engaging allows word is misguidance.
Every other pursuit has to be under the shade of that pure pursuit of Allah's guidance. When I seek Allah's guidance, then I will learn, then I will memorize, then I will study that read, then I will study to see then I'll study the Islamic sciences, whatever you're studying, you're studying, but you're the, the intention remains the same. I want a lot of guide me.
I don't want to feel like I belong to a group that's that may be a secondary benefit. It's nice to be part of a community. I don't want to be so so much I have so much admiration for my teacher that I can never disagree with him. Even when a lot My heart is telling me My mind is telling me a lie, saying something in contradiction with what my teacher told me. He may have said 95 things right? He said five things very wrong. But I love my teacher too much. So I won't say anything. No, that's the word of Allah, your loyalty is not to your school, or the books you read. Your loyalty is not to your teacher, not me or anybody else. Your loyalty is to the word of Allah, be a sincere student.
And that doesn't mean that you can come up with your own conclusions. But you can you have the right to sincerely ask, Hey, what about this? What about this idea? Are we overlooking it? Are we not thinking about it? How do we think about it? And maybe your teacher will give you an answer that doesn't satisfy you? And that's okay, too, then you must continue to seek the answer and not say, Well, my chef said, don't think about it. So I'm not going to think about another No, unless I think about it. So you got to
you can't shut your mind off. This is not this. This is not an indoctrination. Drill. ilaha illa sirotkin, I call to Allah with eyes open. This is the mentality of a Muslim when they say I'm going to seek guidance from Allah 's book, by the way. This on this note, the wrong direction in which this conversation can be taken is also important to mention. So I mentioned that disclaimer, you know what that is?
I don't know a lot about something. But I'm ready to comment on it. Right? I don't know a lot about medicine. And I hear a doctor talk and I say these doctors don't know anything.
I don't have the training to be able to comment that they make no sense. I know nothing about nutrition. I know nothing about how the body digests different kinds of nutrients. And somebody is talking about nutritionists. This guy, he's got ridiculous. How are you going to tell me kid cats not healthy. These people don't know what they're talking about.
When you haven't put in the work yourself,
when you haven't done the work the labor of learning yourself,
when you haven't exhausted yourself, when you haven't humbled yourself before knowledge. But you're so quick to say sandemans, right? We don't have to follow these scholars. We don't have to follow anybody else. We can come up with our own. Yeah, no, I'm not saying Google your way away. Whatever theories you have, then again, you are you're you're not valid. And this is going to lead to our second discussion is if you truly want to seek guidance, then you better be ready to put in the work.
So let's talk about putting in the work. That's our second condition. He says the second condition, first condition is I have to come to it seeking guidance. That's my pure intention. I hope that I clarified that for you. The second one is you have to accept the Koran as rich, endlessly rich, endlessly meaningful, and infinitely superior. Now, I said three things rich, meaningful and so
superior. What that means is if it is endlessly read, like, for example, if somebody was digging in there, they own some land, and they started digging just for habit. And their kid was digging around the backyard and they found some gold. A little bit of gold. And if that was your kid and they found some gold in your backyard, would you stop digging?
And maybe you dug four feet, you found nothing? Would you stop digging?
Maybe you found a little tiny nugget after four feet, little tiny one, would you keep digging? Or no? Would you tear up your entire backyard? Or no? Would you come up with the money to buy the next door neighbor, see if there's some gold around or No.
Because when you see that there's even the possibility of value, then you put in the work,
then you put in the labor, it doesn't matter how hot it is outside.
It doesn't matter that you've never done anything before. It doesn't matter that your back hurts, you're gonna dig because it's worth it.
You and I have to accept that the Quran is an endless source of riches of Allah's wisdom, of unless Counsel of Allah's guidance, you know what that means? That means we got to dig,
we got to put the time in, it doesn't open, it's not cheap. It doesn't open itself up to just anybody. If Allah doesn't see the effort, he doesn't open it for you. You can read it you can google the translations of the Quran and get nothing because Allah sees what effort did you put in two taps of your finger or you have a Quran app that now you think you put in the work? You have to put in the work? You have to put in the the exhaustion. And that exhaustion has to be with the belief that you're doing this, even if you don't know at the moment, why am I learning this? Why am I studying this? Why am I memorizing this? Why am I learning and why am I learning grammar? Why am I learning
songs? Why am I studying? Why am I going through this super exhaustive journey? Why am I reading all these papers? Why? You know why? Because you are convinced there's an endless rich, there's an endless treasure underneath that was meant specifically for you. It wasn't for a scholar. It wasn't for a ship. It wasn't with somebody with a big old beard. It wasn't with the lady that wears the hijab, and only that lady, it wasn't for people that speak Arabic. It wasn't No, it was for you that Allah revealed this treasure. And then he said, I've made you capable of digging.
He made you capable of exploring. That means that you have to put in the effort. So that's how rich it is. So if you truly believe that it's that endless, rich source of riches, then you will put in the effort. By the way, riches means that luxury, right? But it's also essentials, we come back to the idea of guidance, how many times that the prophets lie, some asked for guidance. In a day, every time he stood in prayer. And the minimum is five times what the prophet says I'm pretty much more than that. The guide for all of humanity was begging Allah for guidance, standing, dropping everything standing in front of Allah, begging Allah for guidance multiple times a day, you know
what that proves, among many things, it proves guidance is not cheap. You have to ask a lot over and over for it. You can't just have it. You can just say I took Shahada now I got it. You can just say I learned Arabic Now I got it. You can't just say memorize the Quran. Now I got it. All right, listen to a bunch of lectures. Now I got it. I gave a bunch of lectures now I got it. No, I could have it now and lose it in the next hour. I gotta go back and beg again and again and again and again. And it's something so easily, so difficult. So so so much work is taken to get it and it can be lost so easily, so easily. And so I have to recognize that and put myself in constant labor for
the pursuit of guidance, then the Quran is meaningful. What that means what that what that tells me is nothing in the Quran is frivolous. Nothing in the Quran is extra. Nothing in the Quran is irrelevant. Every bit of it, every word of it, every phrase of it, every story of it. Every law of it.
Every part of it is meaningful, meaningful to me. Alo wanted me to know this. He spoke to me, the maker of the skies in the earth. The creator of Abraham Ali salam, the center of Muhammad, Allah Susa Salam spoke to me. He wants me to know this, and it's meaningful for my life. It's not a it's interesting. That's really cool that some people learn about this stuff. That's great for them. Oh, I'm not the I'm not the current. I'm not Islamic type.
You've pigeonholed you've kept you've put the Quran in one of the shelves in the library.
You and You forgot just like every day my body needs water. And I can't say 100 I had it last year. Now I'm okay. Allah created the body to need water over and over and over again. And a lot compared to Quran to water.
Because the my heart needs the Quran wide, over and over again. I'm going to keep back quick
Going back to it and now finally superior. The Quran is what superior What does that mean? That means when I read the Quran sometimes I don't understand why the subject changed. I don't understand why. Fatiha samaki Surah Al Baqarah, Medina surah Why is it called the cow anyway?
Why is Allium Rhonda Valley? Who's Iran? I have an uncle named ron ron, but who is this? And Ron, why is this so important? What's, what's the big deal? But you know what? And then there's other other ways of thinking about the book that you take away from its superiority? You say, Well, you know, those simple Arabs in the desert, they didn't really have much going on. So it was good for them. They felt spiritually uplifted by it, but what am I gonna get from the Battle of brother man I got, you know, I got I got problems, I got real problems in the modern world to deal with. If the Quran was revealed today, then it would have dealt with the situations that are relevant to me. How
do you expect me to find relevance in a book that's talking to people in a in the middle of a desert a more than, you know, a millennium and a half ago? It's not relevant to me. This is you not accepting that the Quran is white superior, that the Quran is what meaningful that the Quran, so must have been superior for them.
It must have been rich for them, not for me, I'm past that we graduated past the need of the Quran. Right? So that could be a modern mind that says, I don't need to look at this ancient text to find any meaning in it. If this is your attitude, you will not find anything in the Quran, you will easily dismiss it and live your life not knowing what it is. And even if you did read it, because you have that mindset, you'll get nothing from it. Actually, what you'll get is you'll only reinforce your flawed opinion. That's all you're gonna get.
That's another way in which we don't accept the supremacy of the Quran. And we end up shortchanging it. But what about people that actually believe in the Quran, this is maybe I'm talking about somebody who's become super liberal or something, or they've modernized or they're not really that religious, and they kind of dismissed the Quran in this way. Or they've had a, you know, bad experience with somebody who misinterpreted the Quran and abused them in the name of the Quran. Therefore, they hate the Quran itself, whatever, those are their stories, okay. But there are people who actually hold the book in their hands. There are people who recite it every day, there are
people who flip who filled the massages, who study this religion. And unfortunately, even among them, what attitude spreads the attitude the spreads is the Quran is a book of what we should believe, and what we should do. And what we should believe is our aqidah. And what we should do is, right, so since I studied arcada, and I studied, everything that had to be extracted from the Quran has already been extracted. So the Quran is there now for blessings for the weed for memorization for recitation. It's cool to know some of these stories and stuff, but really what I read and some nice reminders here and there, but really the practical most important things that had to be
extracted from the Quran Alhamdulillah the oma already extracted those treasures, everything else is extra credit assignments.
Right? Is that not also undermining the Quran and not expressing is not, you know, admitting its superiority, as if to say this endless treasure I started by saying it has endless riches, right? And in the mind of someone, no, it's not endless riches, because what riches we needed to get for our faith already nakida text a primer. And what what endless riches we had to get from divine law are already in a fifth book. So we good. We don't need the Quran anymore. We can just use it for evidences for our physical books, and evidences which I always used for this point in Aikido data. Okay, that's good. Now we know it's done. Now we can pull it back. And the only time we need to take
it out is maybe you know, some Sonam which will have to recite in which prayer, you know, for Baraka, et cetera, et cetera. That's all that's all this role is. How is how is this an attitude that the Quran is superior?
How is this the attitude that this book will what Allah says it is enough for them? When he says don't they contemplate the Quran? Is our attitude well hamdulillah some people came and contemplated geology Our job is done.
We're good.
This is a dismissing dismissive attitude, and underestimation of what Allah says, or what allows where it actually is. Then for other people, they say, you know, I get it. It's a it's, you know, it's a it's a divine book. It's a holy book. And obviously, I think it's superior. That's why I make sure that when we have our wedding for our daughter, at least somebody will come and recite some Quran. Or you know, I make sure because it's so superior and if the Quran protects us, so I make sure that I have a microscopic copy of the Quran. Yes, you need a electron telescope to read the pages that are like this tiny, I have it hanging in my rearview mirror because I don't have anti
lock brakes and dual side airbags. So this is my protection. Right? Or I have like a little cookie chain over here, because man I cross a lot of highways sometimes I don't want to get hit by no truck. So I took mercy forcefield protection, baby
right that's that's my bronze protection. Quran is blessings. You know what to do in my cultures, weddings, they have the girl you know when the wedding happens all kinds of things that Allah says you shouldn't do they do in the wedding. But when she's about to go into the car, they will take the father will take a copy of the Quran and hold it over the girl's head and she's walking to the limo with the Quran over her head and everybody's crying
you know, cuz if the if he removes it from her head lightning will strike with all the stuff they've been doing inside. So maybe that's the reason that was the holdup gone over. This is what the Quran has become or, or the Quran is, of course, it's superior. Of course, it's beautiful. That's why we have so much calligraphy of it on our walls right next to our big screen TV.
Right? It's, it's just calligraphy, it's beautiful. It's a book of blessings. It's a book of good deeds, every every letter is 10 good deeds. It's a book a beautiful recitation, which we've turned down into background music. Like you pick somebody up from the airport, you're listening to Quran in the background Quran is that background conversation.
So many times it happened. Like I've been picked up to speak at a convention or a conference or whatever. The guys have picked me up they're listening to Quran which is great, but I get in the car Hey, Ron, how are you? I shall I shall lie is that really us? It really is me. It's me. And I like Can Can you turn the car off? And they're like,
you don't like listening to her? No, I don't like talking when ally speaking.
Like you're not supposed to talk when ally speaking. Why is this background music for you?
If alive, speaking uncIe to SME una juanzi toda la come to her moon, listen to it carefully and shut your mouth. So you can be shown Rama, Allah says this. Right. But for us, these are the things these are the roles the Quran plays now. But its supremacy, it's, it's, it's the highest thing. And when I say the Quran is the most Supreme, that means nothing is more valuable in my life as a Muslim
than having access to Allah word.
mean, we value brushing our teeth in the morning, we value getting in our exercise, we value eating our breakfast, we value going to work because it will provide pay the bills, right? It's our it's our sustenance. We value things that take care of our bodies. We value things that take care of our minds, you're not going to be late for a class at the university, you paid for it. You paid for it.
Well, where is the value that you and I give to Allah's word on a daily basis? Like where does it fit? How much on our minds is a buzzword?
How much time is spent contemplating it thinking about seeking guidance from it?
I have to ask myself that hard question. You have to ask yourself the hard question. That's That's a tough question for all of us. Because in the world of distractions, that which is the highest importance, has now become, oh my god, I completely forgot,
is not even a side activity.
That that's the value it gets. That's the time it gets. This is what he says is our second, if the Quran is a side thing, you're not going to get guidance from it.
If Allah sees that you made it a priority. You dedicated some time to it. You were disciplined about it, you came to a digging and seeking and seeking you came to it not with a critical mind. Like you know, you're we're so used to criticizing everything we read. Right? Oh, this book, I give it three stars. This, this movie, two and a half stars were become critical by nature, we just criticize things that we experience.
Well, with that in mind, when you come to the Quran, you say, how can this How come that this doesn't make any sense? Why is it this way? Why is it that way?
Well, when that happens when things don't make sense, in the Quran, the first thing, according to this point that he's making is, first thing is my brain isn't big enough to understand the supremacy of Allah's word.
First thing I'm gonna do is humble myself. If I don't understand something, it doesn't mean there's a problem with what's being said. Or there's something missing.
There's something missing in my understanding
of the humble myself, and will lie the there have been places in the Quran. That's coming to fourth point. But actually, I'll make the fourth point, the third point, and then I'll come to the I'll rearrange it a little bit, changing slightly order a little bit. He says that the fleet in alized is another condition of contemplating so in order to make sure that you seek it as guidance, right, that's your intention, and then accepted supremacy and its richness and its meaning its meaningfulness. The third condition that I'm rearranging now is turning back to Allah. Now, what does he mean by turning back to Allah? He means you're going to read the Quran, you're going to find
something you don't understand. Guaranteed. Allah designed it that way.
Allah designed it you give you study, hold on for 15 years and go yellow.
What are you seeing here? Yellow, what you're saying. And when that happens, you will either your thought process shutdown will come and say this doesn't make any sense
or you will say to your
This is beyond me, I can understand that there's no point, leave it.
But you know what you need to have? You need to have that moment when you can't find it. When you can't find what Allah is saying to you, we can understand it. That is the moment where you have to turn back to Allah and speak to him the Quran is Allah speaking to you. Now you speak to Alliance Ayala, this ayah I don't I don't get open your doors of wisdom. Let me understand what you mean here. I will try and contemplate to the best of my ability. I will seek knowledge from those who have, I will inquire and I will inquire but yeah, a lot. I know. In the end, the only one who can open the door of knowledge and the open the door of guidance. And open the door of wisdom is you.
Hello, open this door for me. I'm just I'm begging you for your IRA.
I'm coming to you for your IRA.
You know, you have direct access to the author.
And other books you read. Like what did the author mean? You can just call your day? What do you mean? Okay, help me out here. The author ain't got no time for you. But the author of all authors, Allah himself.
He's inviting you to go and ask him.
Go and ask him. If you don't understand something, go and ask Yala. What do you want me to learn from this? Ayah? What should I take away from this? Ayah? You know what I'm What do you mean by this? I'm reading and I'm stuck. Helping. This is a spiritual conversation between you and your master as you're reading your masters words. That's a toughy that a lot. You have to have that attitude. You can't have the attitude that you have with any other book. Oh, I don't get it. Man. This author, he just dropped the ball on this one doesn't make any sense.
The doors of guidance close. Once you have that, once you even entertain that thought, get rid of that thought. Then the
I see.
Oh, yeah, two more. There's five. Sorry, I gotta do all this.
The third one. Maybe I'll leave the fifth one for the fourth one now, but maybe I'll leave the fifth one for tomorrow inshallah
is the resolve to change yourself. And this is one of the heaviest things I've ever read about the Quran. I'm just giving you a disclaimer. This part is one of the hardest things about the Quran. Just looking in the mirror is one of the hardest things I've ever read. He says, You came seeking guidance, right?
When you came seeking guidance you started Allah started opening up your understanding of what he's saying.
So you started realizing that the Quran is purifying your ideas, the way you see the world, the way you see right and wrong. The way you see what should be done and what should not be done. Your thoughts about history, about culture, about nations, your thoughts about good and evil
and your thoughts about yourself.
The Quran doesn't just seem to be teaching you something. The Quran immediately starts making demands.
It makes what demands and when someone makes demands from you, that means they want you to change
isn't it
we open up open up bacara lovina they believe in the unseen well up masala they pray they establish the prayer.
Wait, I gotta get get up for Pfizer. And then and then and then and then OSHA.
And I have to commit to that every day.
Isn't that a change in somebody's life?
That can be a pretty big change that can change your sleep schedule.
That can change how your family responds, because you're not just waking up and turning the light on him in the eye. What are you doing? It's a change, right? It has ripple effects, doesn't it? establishing the prayer doesn't just affect you establishing the prayer affects people around you. So even if you just take that one example. What does the Quran do? It demands change. But it doesn't just demand change in behavior. Sometimes it demands change in attitude change in speech.
I start thinking man, the way I talk to this person, I can't talk like that.
What I've been doing, I can't do that.
The way I've been behaving, I can't behave like that. The face I make I can't make that face.
It's pointing out things that I never thought anybody would ever point out. If I'm really seeking guidance, I'm not going to say oh no, that's a story from 1000s of years ago. It has nothing to do with me. You read the story and say Wait, I got a little bit of fit on in me.
I just thought
Oh, that's not good.
Okay, be good. The Quran starts becoming a very explicit mirror.
And it shows you where you should be. And it shows you where you are, shows you both where you should be and where you are. And sometimes those two are really far away from each other.
Right where you should be and where you are far away from each other. And you start realizing that oh my
God, I am really far from where Allah wants me to be.
I came to him seeking guidance. And when he gave me that guidance, he showed me myself and where I stand, and where I need to be.
And I know I can't fill that gap in one day. But I've made a firm commitment that I'm going to bridge this gap to the best of my ability, Allah, I asked you for this. And I know when you guide, as painful as this closing of this gap is going to be because when you start taking one step towards a lot, it's gonna hurt stuff that you used to love doing. You can't do stuff that you used to think about all the time, you can't have the withdrawals, you're gonna go through the friends, you're gonna lose the way that you used to spend, everything's going to start changing everything. And it's not just that it's hard enough to deal with the desires you have inside yourself and letting them
go. Your habits, your addictions, your own your own ones, you're starting to let them shed them, you're scraping them out of yourself. Because Allah is cleaning you out from the inside, use a key him, but then people around you notice and they're bothered by it. They're like, what's happening to you? Why are you becoming so extreme? What are you doing? Just come back to normal come back to us. We love you the way you are you becoming someone someone new? It's like, I don't even recognize you. Who are you? I don't like this person. This is not who I love. You can't be a part of this family, who just get away from me What have you become, and you start feeling? First of all, you're fighting
in a fight inside yourself. And then the people closest to you are fighting with you. There's a fight going on outside yourself.
And then when you step a little bit outside, you look at everybody else, everybody else is normal, and you're becoming weird. You know, people are looking at you funny. They seem different. Because you're not acting like them anymore. You're not talking like them anymore. They're in a party backbiting and you're not you're saying I'm not gonna take part in that Allah wants me to change that. They're making fun of somebody else's, you know, cheap clothes, or whatever else or car they drive. And you're like, no, we're not gonna, and you're stopping them from doing a dukascoin demands from you to speak up. When wrong is being done? Yeah, well, nobody knows where
they stand for what's right, they stand against what's wrong. You take a stand, and you become social enemy. No, you don't need to have a pandemic type of social distancing, people will socially distance themselves from you. Because you decided to make even a small amount of change.
Compared to somebody else, you have done nothing. But compared to the world you were in you become a religious extremist.
Right, you just you're gone too far.
And when that so when the demand for change comes, you get three kinds of people. This is what I'm going to leave you with today. When the demand for change, you realize the Quran wanted you to change and showed you where you stand. Now there's a demand for change. Once you realize that demand for change, you will belong to one of three categories, you have to decide which one you are. Let me explain those three categories. Category number one, you say, you know what, how you no matter how much it hurts on the inside, and how much it hurts on the outside. I'm going to put my feelings, my emotions, my wants my addictions, my withdrawals, my fears, my anxieties, the pressures on the
outside the pressures on the inside, I'm going to, I'm going to make them
smaller, and I'm going to make my commitment to a love bigger.
The word of a lie is higher than all those feelings combined.
And I'm going to try to make a change. That's group number one. Those people they're the ones who taste the sweetness of what it really means to have guidance from Allah. Because when they turn to a love for guidance, it's because everybody else has kicked them away. And they only have a love for guidance. They taste the sweetness of guidance. They have it like nobody else they're the lucky few. I love make all of us from them. Because you could be from them and then lose your way and you have to be from them all over again. That can be it can get rusty the second group the second group is people who look at you think about oh my god y'all law you want so much change?
That's a lot that's a lot for me.
I don't think I can do it.
I know some people that have done it Mashallah good for them. Allah has given them tofik whoever that guy is Sophia. He gave him he gave them tofik Allah give them ability ally enabled them Allah bless them. You clearly didn't bless me. I'm not that strong. I can't do it. I just, it's just way too much.
I can't I you don't know what my family will do.
You know what my friends will do? You don't know what's going to be like for me at work, I'll get fired. There'll be economic consequences, social consequences, but I love her too much. I love him too much. If I change that, I'm going to lose the person. I love
my parents
My siblings, my spouse, whoever, girlfriend, boyfriend, you name it,
I'm going to lose them. Because I, I'm not willing to lose all of that, like, I can't, I'm gonna get ruined, I'm gonna get destroyed.
Yeah, like, I just want you to know that I want to change but I can't.
Okay? Because Because I'm not able to.
So I'm praying to you, and I'm crying to you. And I'm reading your book. And I know that you're saying what what you're saying is right, I just can't do it. I'm just letting you know, you understand, right Allah, because
this is a lie against yourself.
And this is a lie against a law. That's the more serious part, we don't realize that.
Unless his law, you can leave for law enough such a lousy law does not put a burden on anybody except that they can carry it.
If Allah burden you, with this beautiful guidance, and full of burden to you with the demand for change, he would never have put that burden on you. If he didn't know already that you are capable.
If you were incapable this demand would never have been placed on you. That's my rub. He loves you too much to mix, ask you have something that you're not capable of doing. He just doesn't do it.
He's a black man. So when you turn to a line say Yala, what you asked is too much. It's too harsh. It's too difficult. You're negating Allah himself, who said, yes, you are capable. And I did this out of love. And you turn to Allah, Allah.
No, I'm not capable. And it's too hard. It's not out of love. It seems like it's pretty harsh.
This is a lie against Allah.
Don't fall in this category.
Then there's a third category.
By the way, the second category,
I call them the too much, there's
just too much for me can't do it. First, one of the changes, they do make the change, whatever change they make, and they don't become angels overnight. let's admit that. But they make a step they take a step, right?
And then there's the final category.
Okay, okay, I got that Ron wants me to change, I got that the Quran wants me to hold this view, and to speak up for what it says and to stand by itself with strength with a backbone.
But too many people will be unhappy with me if I do that.
Also, at the same time, I don't want to look like I'm abandoning the Quran either.
So one I don't want to change.
And I don't want to look like I don't want to change.
So I've got a plan, I'll just change the way the Quran is interpreted.
So it fits so I don't have to change will just change the Quran.
You understand. And this way, and these people do two things, this group one, they try to reinterpret the Quran in a way that fits the culture that they are part of. They reinterpret the Quran that fits the political environment, that they're a part of the reinterpret the Quran in a way that their family will be okay with it. They can live with themselves, they can lie to themselves and be okay. Right. So they'll read, they'll they'll, and in order to do that you have to do some creative exercise because look what honestly explicitly clear that it doesn't allow for your nonsense. So what do you have to do? You have to ignore huge parts of the Quran and not even talk
about them and say, You know what, Allah, I love this. This like when Allah says he's over him, I really love it. He's loving and caring. I love that name of Allah. It's so beautiful. It's in the Quran, you know? Oh, yeah. What else is in the Quran? What is that from? You don't know the rest of the ayah. Now, but that's slow. You know, like, there's difference of opinion about that.
Yeah, there's the fact and there's the opinion that you have that you don't want to think about that. We will hide behind words like difference of opinion, even though you don't know what you're talking about.
No, there's different ways of looking at No, there isn't. There really isn't. That's just you lying to yourself.
And that's you coming off as righteous because you feel righteous this way. Because you said something from the Quran, deliberately hiding huge other parts of the Quran.
And people do this to fit in a culture to stay in their cult. People do this. people interpret the book to stay within a certain cult to keep their audiences at the end of the day. They just please people one way or the other.
Now you didn't come to this book to finally please your Rob because he wants guidance for you. You came to please people.
That's the worst of the worst
moment of la manif de la de la He can't even tell you the ideal Islam.
La la cama. Ballymena mean, who could be worse, who could be more of a wrongdoer? Think about this question that Alas, who could do more wrong, the way even that sentence begins who could do more wrong
As if alive saying of all the wrong things, this is the longest
who could do more wrong than the one who makes up a lie against Allah while he's being called to Islam to surrender. Allah doesn't guide the corrupt Allah doesn't guide the wrongdoers. Well, I will I will not give a person like that guidance.
I cannot judge where you stand, you cannot judge where I stand in the scheme. Or we need to become the people that fit under Category A we're trying to make a change sincerely and are lying to Allah, Allah I'm trying but it's impossible to know. That's also a lie.
Change is visible to yourself. Change is painful. It's It's sweet pain that Allah wants you to go through Allah created this world with rules. And the rules are anything worth it is painful.
That's the rule you want to get fit, painful training.
You want to become a doctor painful education.
You want to you want to dig for gold, painful digging.
Nothing you acquire in this life that is worth it comes without what pain, and nothing comes without transformation.
You have to transform priorities, you have to transform yourself to meet the needs of your goal. You give yourself to a goal. athletes do it all the time, don't they? They give themselves to a goal.
We have to give ourselves to this goal. I want guidance. That's become my goal. Everything else in life stays but it becomes illuminated.
If you can do that, if you can become an I can become part of Group A. May Allah make all of you and your loved ones, part of group a, you know what happens? You lose a lot of people.
And you gain new people.
You gain people that are also like you having lost others because they stuck to what's right. That's what it means to be the religion of Ibrahim. Because Ibrahim Ali Salaam story is about losing people, isn't it? He's going to commit to what lies he's going to commit to guidance, and he's going to get thrown in a fire for it is going to get kicked out of home for it. He's gonna go through all kinds of stuff because he wants guidance. And Allah says you are the religion of your father Abraham.
So get ready for some Abraham times.
But because we're all a Miller, we get to support each other when Latina Armando amilo, Sally Hart, notice Ilana homeless Sally hain, those of you who believe who do good things, we will enter them into company, the company of good people, we will absolutely immerse them, inject them into the company of good people. Everybody who's going to come to the Quran seeking its guidance is going to find their heart connected to somebody else who's coming to the Quran seeking its guidance, and hearts are going to start coming together. And other differences, language, culture, school of thought, other differences will start becoming less important. But the fact that they're coming
together for the word of Allah will become more important. And this is a love of Enoch will become he put love between your hearts. That's how that works. And this discussion, there's a fifth component, I won't go into it today. inshallah, we'll talk about that tomorrow. But I wanted to highlight these things, because I don't want you to read that Allah says the Quran is guidance lightly.
I don't want you to read that for like a lead did not drop some just small conclusion at the end of this ayah. And it's it's pointed that Allah says through the point that Allah says it's not made up speech, it's not frivolous speech. And as soon as he says that, you say no, every word is important. And then so every word especially of this ayah becomes extra important, doesn't it? So I wanted to spend time just talking about who then we'll talk a little bit more about who then tomorrow, and then go Tara Smith and Nicole McMillan barakallahu li walakum filco Anil Hakeem. When you combine it with the collective it's coming, it's coming. Wait for it. Wait for it. I bet you won't get it. I
really bet you won't get it
right if you got it.